The Incredible Hulk Star Edward Norton Reveals His Favorite Bruce Banner Actor

The Incredible Hulk star Edward Norton may have played Bruce Banner only once, but he feels that makes him part of a great tradition. Speaking to Yahoo Entertainment, Norton compared Banner to playing Hamlet. He spoke highly of the other actors who have played the character in films, Eric Bana and Mark Ruffalo. But he says that, for all of them, no one surpasses what Bill Bixby did with Bruce Banner on The Incredible Hulk television series. “It’s funny, Mark is one of my old friends from New York theater coming up together and the Hulk is like Hamlet, lots of people have done it and for us like it’s Bill Bixby,” Norton says. “That’s just it. Bill Bixby will always be the best Banner.

“Some actors have more or less plasticity,” Norton continues. “Some roles have more or less plasticity. And, you know, Hamlet can be interpreted in a lot of different ways, right? By a lot of different actors. I kind fo think Hulk is Hulk, but Banner has got some play in him, you know what I mean? In my opinion, only really good people have done it, like Bill Bixby. Eric Bana a great actor. I have my spin. Mark’s one of the best. I love that there’s this… it’s almost become a tradition.”

The creative tensions between Norton and Marvel Studios while making The Incredible Hulk are well documented. Norton appeared to take a jab at Marvel during Comedy Central’s roast of Bruce Willis but later said that’s not how he intended the joke. “I’m saying that Kevin had an idea of a thing that you could do, and it was remarkable,” Nortons aid in a later interview. “Now it didn’t happen to be on a tonal, thematic level what I wanted to spend my time doing. Conflating that into a fight or a judgement is grotesque.”

Norton also said that he envisioned a two-film arc, beginning with The Incredible Hulk and continuing in a darker sequel. “I laid out a two-film thing: The origin and then the idea of Hulk as the conscious dreamer, the guy who can handle the trip,” Norton said. “And they were like, ‘That’s what we want!’ As it turned out, that wasn’t what they wanted.”

In a separate interview, Norton said that, despite whatever happened with The Incredible Hulk, he’d be open to returning to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. “Maybe as a baddie? Maybe I’ll write my own,” he said. “I don’t know, I’m open to everything. I mean, I did Ask the StoryBots on Netflix.”

Who do you think is the best Bruce Banner? Let us know in the comments.